Posted on 05/25/2002 1:23:18 AM PDT by Ordinary_American
Why didn't the Bush administration connect the dots and take aggressive measures before 9/11?
For the same reason we're not doing so today: distractions and a lack of urgency. Forget about the blame game — for it's just that kind of distraction. It's more important to look ahead and try to block the next attack. Where are the dots today?
One dot is Osama bin Laden's fervent efforts to obtain bio-weapons, reflected in the lab he was building near Kandahar, Afghanistan, to produce anthrax.
Another dot is Iraq. Hazem Ali, a senior Iraqi virologist involved in his country's bio-weapons program, has admitted working with camelpox virus. It's a puzzling choice for a bio-weapon because it's a mild disease — except, as Jonathan Tucker notes in his book "Scourge," Iraq may be genetically engineering camelpox into something closer to smallpox. A scientist who once worked in the Soviet bio-weapons program told me of a visit by Iraqi scientists inquiring about genetic engineering of germs.
A third dot is our vulnerability. The Brentwood mail-sorting facility in Washington is still closed because of contamination, as is the Hamilton Township processing center in New Jersey. Just 100 anthrax letters, if mailed around the nation, could close down the U.S. postal system.
A fourth is our failure to capture the anthrax killer, suggesting to Iraq and other potential perpetrators that they might get away with an attack.
So connect these dots and what do they suggest? A biological threat that requires much more vigorous and urgent countermeasures.
Richard Danzig, a bioterror expert and former secretary of the Navy, noted that the anthrax attacks in the fall could be thought of as 5/11: 5 people died, and 11 were infected with inhalation anthrax. Today people worry more about 9/11 scenarios than about 5/11 attacks — even though a bioterror attack could be incomparably more devastating.
"The more significant national security issue is 5/11," Mr. Danzig said. "The risk of recurrence is high, and could involve anything from a few casualties to tens of thousands. Accordingly, I think this is urgent."
The government once conducted an experiment using a Navy ship two miles off San Francisco to release harmless spores that had the same size and weight as anthrax. Experts tracked the spores and concluded that had this been anthrax, several hundred thousand people might have died — although no one would have been aware of the attack until the victims developed fevers four days later.
One of the first steps we can take to reduce our vulnerability is to light a fire under the F.B.I. in its investigation of the anthrax case. Experts in the bioterror field are already buzzing about a handful of individuals who had the ability, access and motive to send the anthrax.
These experts point, for example, to one middle-aged American who has worked for the United States military bio-defense program and had access to the labs at Fort Detrick, Md. His anthrax vaccinations are up to date, he unquestionably had the ability to make first-rate anthrax, and he was upset at the United States government in the period preceding the anthrax attack.
I say all this to prod the authorities, for although the F.B.I. has known about this handful of people since October, it has been painstakingly slow in its investigation. Let's hope it will pick up the pace, for solving the case would reduce our vulnerability to another attack.
At a policy level, how are we doing at reducing our vulnerability?
"I don't think anything significant has been done to reduce our vulnerability just yet, aside from creating greater awareness," said Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist who studies bioterrorism for the Federation of American Scientists.
So what should be done? Experts offer suggestions like these:
Smallpox vaccination should begin on a voluntary basis.
Air filtration should be upgraded in landmark buildings. Humidity should be kept above 20 percent so that particles will clump together and aerosol attacks are less effective.
Germ detectors developed by the military should be installed in Grand Central Terminal and elsewhere in New York City. These detectors don't work well, but they are being used at key locations in Washington — though not in New York. The message seems to be: "Pentagon to City: Drop Dead."
O.k., who is it?
First of all, why is anyone who might be motivated to initiate bio-terrorism allowed anywhere near an anthrax facility?
...and he was upset at the United States government in the period preceding the anthrax attack.
Upset how? Is he another one of those environmental extremeists, like the Unibomber or the Smiley-face mailbox bomber, for whom the Times can never muster the same level of condemnation for as they did for McVeigh?
And why doesn't the Times gather together a "go for the Pulitzer" investigative team of reporters to look into the "handful" of suspects? Reporters can sometimes get people to open up more than law enforcement.
This could turn out to be true.
Kristof tells the FBI to put up or shut up (in much more polite words, of course). If they really think it's one of our own scientists who mailed the anthrax, go find him and arrest him. As Kristof points out, anything less endangers our national security by giving Iraq and others the idea that they could get away with the same thing.
And it was published in the New York Times.
And he was in Zimbabwe during the Anthrax outbreak there, practicing medicine at the time, though he does not do so here, and has been concentrating instead on *research*.
Abstract:
The largest recorded outbreak of anthrax in humans occurred in Zimbabwe during its civil war, in 1979 to 1980. There were a number of unusual features of the epizootic. The disease spread over time from area to area, until six of the eight provinces were affected. Yet anthrax usually appears as a point source outbreak, without significant geographic spread. Only the African-owned cattle in the Tribal Trust Lands were affected; cattle belonging to whites were uninvolved. A critical review of the scientific explanations proposed to account for these events is presented. The possibility that the epizootic could have been a biological warfare event is evaluated. Finally, suggestions are advanced for further investigations into the origin of this epizootic. [PSRQ 1992;2:198-209]
What is the evidence placing him in Zimbabwe? I did a brief search and found nothing.
Mega Bump!
The Iraqi opposition groups (who are not the most reliable people) have complained that since the mid-90s anything which the CIA knew about their activities soon seemed to be known to the Iraqi govt. Maybe they are just covering up for their own failures. Or ...
I still think this article is quite different from the earlier ones which we've seen promoting the Greenpeace/Rosenberg theory. This one doesn't really promote the theory at all. It just says to the FBI: if the theory is true, arrest somebody; if it's not, follow other leads to get to the true heart of the matter. (In other words, put up or shut up.)
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